NAOMI AND RITCHIE ON THE ROAD AGAIN.....

This past week, Richie and I were granted a visit with Mr. Devin McAnally, the rancher famous for shooting a Texas Blue Dog in Elmendorf, Texas on May of 2004. The story was investigated by the CFZ and ultimately featured on the History Channel’s Monster Quest. However, the story remains far from resolved, as the identity of the creature has yet to be satisfactorily determined.
McAnally submitted a bone to several different companies for DNA testing with dubious results each time. Whitley Strieber paid for the first DNA testing at University of California Davis. According to Strieber, UCAL said that very little DNA was obtainable because the bones had been previously exposed either to extreme heat or radiation. (The closest nuclear plant is 200 miles from Elmendorf, and there are no nuclear waste disposal sites within 400 miles.) UCAL could not complete the testing, but the results they did find were unusual and matched with nothing known.

McAnally sent another bone to a man claiming to be a graduate assistant in a northern university, but the university in question had never heard of him. McAnally called to monitor the status of the sample, but gave up when the man proved nonresponsive.

McAnally then signed a contract for DNA testing through Disney, who sent the bone to a doctor with a private laboratory in East Texas. After missing three deadlines, Disney began ignoring McAnally’s calls altogether. Mcanally learned that the doctor had had to delay the tests due to pressing DNA contracts with all open criminal investigations in the state of Texas. The Blue Dog tests were only fifty percent done, and the results appeared to be coyote at that point. Mcanally is convinced the testing was never finished, and nothing beyond mitochondrial was attempted.
In his final attempt, Mcanally submitted a bone through the History Channel to New York University, who claimed that due to “exposure to the elements and heat”, they could not obtain any nuclear DNA, and only a short sequence of mitochondrial. The results revealed that the DNA did not match any species of coyote, but was “identical to the sequences of dozens of breeds of domestic dog.”

Our mission was to bring closure to the Elmendorf mystery by obtaining a DNA sample. Considering the frustration McAnally had experienced with past offers, we were happily surprised when he consented to our request for a bone. The only condition was that we provide a definitive plan for DNA testing, that the testing include both mitochondrial and nuclear testing, and that McAnally be the first to know the results. We agreed to this, and once that plan is in place, we will have our bone.

We video-recorded an interview detailing McAnally’s 2004 shooting of the creature, as well as more recent alleged sightings by other Elmendorf residence. Video is on its way…

Pic shows Jon with Devin Macanally in November 2004

A FEATHER BRAINED SCHEME

Tony Lucas, who is rapidly becoming my antipodean right-hand man wrote to us this morning. He found the following item on an auction site in New Zealand:

"I've had this guy get in touch with me and is selling a Moa feather.

The guy rang and spoke with me tonight, the feather, that was in a first edition Maori bible that had been locked in a metal trunk since 1900, has apparently been authenticated by Te Papa Museum in Wellington as the genuine article. I was wondering if the CFZ museum would be interested in purchasing this item"

Well, despite the fact that we are skinter than we have been in a long time, with enormous printer, garage and council tax bills on our plate, I am interested, yes.

But then came a second e-mail:

"Just done some research and Dont think this is a Moa feather, if you look at the bottom of the second pic of the feather you can see the split where asecond spine came off, Yes there were two feathers attached,The only bird to have such feathers after extensive research is - You guessed it an EMU.Sorry to get your hopes up Its not the genuine article by the look of it soforget it.Feel a bit of a dumb ass now. Still who knows one day perhaps the real thing."

Tony, I will not have ANYONE badmouth members of my team. Not even the members themselves. You have done a remarkable piece of detective work, and deserve to be congratulated, so be warned that I will be really cross with you if you EVER describe yourself as a `dumb ass` again.....

OLL LEWIS: Yesterday’s News Today

http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/


As Jeff Lynne once said… oh wait, I’ve done that one already. Anyway, today along with the latest cryptozoology related stories from the CFZ daily news blog it’s music recommendation time. I thought it’d be a good idea to link you to the song on last fm too so the artist gets royalties and you can listen to it while reading the news stories, chomping your biscuits and drinking your tea. This weeks tune is from one of My favourite albums ‘Sparks Of An Ancient Light’ by Al Stewart and the song is ‘Elvis At The Wheel’: http://www.last.fm/music/Al+Stewart/_/Elvis+At+The+Wheel?autostart
Good isn’t it? Now for the news:

Rare vine in Hawaii put on endangered species list
Moricetown Bigfoot tracks continue sighting outbreak
Feathers fly over new dinosaur find
Scientists Find Almost Complete Skeletons Of 25 Young Bird-Like Dinosaurs In China's Gobi Desert
Complete dino skeleton offered at NY auction
New big cat sighting in Norfolk
Bigfoot researchers study Sand Mountain
And
Russia Bans Hunt for Young Harp Seals

Well done to the Russian people for getting the ban, that certainly gets my ‘seal’ of approval. Also, if I can be serious for a minute I’d like to bring peoples attention to that Hawaiian vine, the vine was one of the high profile species that was caught up in president George W. Bush’s attempts to destroy the American Endangered Species Act so it’s good to see that it’ll now get the protection it needs, lets hope its not too late.

RICHARD "PSYCHO" FREEMAN: The BBC invent a new newt

Whilst pootling around on Facebook last night Fleur sent me this link.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7956716.stm

If you read it carefully then you will see that the BBC have apparently invented a new newt, the ‘grey crested newt’. This isn’t a misprint as it appears in the photo caption too.
They mean GREAT crested newts of course, the total WAZARKS!

What’s the world coming to when even the British Broadcasting Company can’t get their facts right about our native natural history? BBC why, oh why, oh why can’t you do your research better? I bet you wouldn’t have made a mistake if the story was about a "celebrity" or someone off a reality TV programme.

IT'S MOTHER'S DAY

As you may or may not know, both my parents are dead. My mother died in March 2002, and my father in February 2006. However, I still have parent-figures in my life. The nearest thing to a father that I have is Tony "Doc"Shiels, one-time Wizard of the Western World, and the nearest thing I have to a mother is the lady on the left.

This is Mrs Marjorie Braund, who during the 1970s when I was a childgrowing up in the North Devon village of Woolsery was like a second mother to me. Thirty something years later, when I am back living in the same house, and she is still living next door nothing much has changed. This picture was taken at the 2006 Weird Weekend and the Access All Areas pass around her neck was the result of a teensy little argument we had, when she wanted to pay to get in, and I flatly refused.

She is still like a mother to me, but she has been taken seriously ill. Please remember her, me, and her bona fide family in your thoughts, and prayers to whichever deity you believe in...

More bird archives ready for download

Oll has been jolly busy and the latest set of scanned news clippings and other stuff from the Archiving Project is ready for you to download HERE should you want to..

It is an absolutely enormous collection of bird related clippings which include stories on elephant birds, and thunderbirds, as well as new and rediscovered bird species and a whole host of other things of interest.

Thank you to everyone who has shown interest in helping with the indexing. Today is the first day for a fortnight that I have not felt like an extra from Zombie Flesh Eaters and I shall be catching up with my enormous backlog of emails over the next few days..

RICHARD FREEMAN: SNAKES IN THE GRASS ARE ABSOLUTELY FREE

Tsuchinoko the flat snake

The ‘flat snake’, a yokai that may have its roots in reality. Tsuchinoko is reported to be one to three feet long with a dorso-ventraly compressed body. It has horn like ridges above the eyes and dorsal pits. The head is triangular and the neck well defined. It is thought to be venomous. It is described as being black or rust coloured. It is supposed to have an odor like chestnut tree flowers!

In legend it has a liking for alcohol, can speak and can hold it’s tail in its mouth and roll along like a hoop (such stories are common in western snake legends as well). It is also said to progress in a series of hopping motions.

The creature is known as Bachi hebi in Northeastern Japan and tsuchi-hebi. It is also said to live in Korea. This yokai has a long history. Drawings resembling Tsuchinoko on stoneware dating back to the ancient Jōmon Period (14,000 BC to 300 BC.) have been discovered in Gifu and Nagano. An encyclopedia from the Edo Period contains a description of the tsuchinoko under the name Yatsui hebi. Accounts of the Tsuchinoko can also be found in the Kojiki, Japan’s oldest surviving book from 680 AD.

But this is a yokai that is still reported in modern times. In June, 1994, 73 year old Kazuaki Noda was cutting grass with his wife when they came across a huge snake with a thick body like a beer bottle and a head described as being like that of a tortoise.

On May 8th, 2000, 90 year old farmer Sugie Tanaka was out looking for bamboo shoots in Mikata, Hyogo prefecture, when she happened across two metallic coloured snakes with what she described as “tails like rats.”

On May 21st 2000 in Yoshi, Okayama prefecture, a farmer cutting grass saw one of these weird serpents slithering across his field. He said it’s face reminded him of the popular Japanese cartoon cat Doraemon. He slashed at it with his weed whipper but it escaped into a stream. He said he had heard of the creatures before and thought they make a kind of chirping sound.

Four days later seventy two year old Hideko Takashima found the creature’s body lying beside a stream. Government officials collected the body and sent it to Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare to be examined. Professor Kuuniyasu Saton examined and said that the creature may indeed have been the beast referred to as Tsuchinoko in ancient legends but “scientifically speaking, it was a kind of snake.”

If the professor ever established the species or if it was indeed a new species is unknown.
A live Tsuchinoko was reportedly captured in Mikata on June 6th, 2000. It was supposedly put on display in a glass box in the Mikata’s visitor center. It may well have been a hoax to drum up publicity for the Tsuchinoko hunts held each year in the area.

Also in June, 2000. 82 year old Mitsuko Arima saw a Tsuchinoko swimming along a river. She described its eyes as being the most striking feature, saying “I can still see the eyes now. They were big and round and it looked like they were floating on the water.” She added “I’ve lived for over 80 years but I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

On 30th of August 2000 the Mainich Daily News reported that a bounty had been put on Tsuchinoko’s head. People throughout Kansai and from as far away as Kanto had throng to the town in central Okayama Prefecture in order to try and catch a Tsuchinoko and claim the reward of twenty million yen from the Yoshi Municipal Government. Though the scaly little yokai remained elusive local sales of Tsuchinoko wine and Tsuchinoko rice cake sky rocketed.

Other supposed bodies of this animal have turned up. In Mikata, (the area said to have the highest concentration of sightings in Japan) a corpse was found by four loggers in the Spring of 2001. The body was actually turned over to the Japan Snake Center in Gunma prefecture, where an analysis was done on it that confirmed it as a common grass snake. Another body was found by a villager near Mikata around the same time in May that year, and it too was turned in to the same center for examination. It was determined to be a rat snake.

Back in 1969 A live Tsuchinoko was reportedly captured in by an M. Tokutake in Mikata. He supposedly captured it with a forked stick and kept it for a couple of days before deciding to eat it.

According to Naoki Yamaguchi, who has interviewed over 200 eyewitnesses and is author of the book Catching the Illusory Tsuchinoko, the specially organized mass searches are of little use. The searchers do not go far enough into the wilderness. Most sightings are by hikers, fishermen and loggers.

If Tsuchinoko is a real creature then it seems probable to me that it is an aberrant species of pit viper (Crotalinae). The flattening of the body could enable the snake to hide in rock crevices. There is a president for thin in reptiles. The chuckwalla (Sauromalus) are a genus comprising of five species of Iguanid lizards of the arid areas of the southern USA.

They are dorso-ventaly flattened and once in a crevice inflate their bodies to make extraction by a predator near impossible.

The Pancake tortoise (Malacochersus tornieri) of eastern Africa has a flattened shell so it can slide into crevices. It is not impossible that Japan, a country with a surprising number of snake species) plays host to an undiscovered pit viper of unique form and one of the most ancient yokai is in fact very real.